


The Debt of Grief

by DinerGirl



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, NSFW, Origin Story, Sex, Sexual Sadism, Violence, back story, multi part story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 00:10:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinerGirl/pseuds/DinerGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his brother's death, Jonathan Randall casts his mind further back to his own teenage years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Debt of Grief

**Author's Note:**

> Original back story & new characters.

Jonathan Randall did not know how to be a father. He thought of his own and came up lacking, came up with blind rage and sadness, the faintest whisper of self loathing. That, though, had been buried long ago and Jonathan could barely force himself to think of it such was the humiliation. What he had seen and heard of other men at the garrison, of the way the other soldiers spoke of wives and children scattered around the country seemed alien to him. Jonathan had thought that all families looked like his until that night he realised they were not and it startled him to see men show tenderness to their sons, uncomplicated pure kindness to their daughters. He did not know how to react when mothers set their children free or when sweethearts and friends waved off their beloved Michael or Gregory or Stephen with deep sadness on their faces. He was sat in an upstairs room at the boarding house where Mary and Alex had been living. He couldn’t bear to be in the room where Alex had died so he had rented another room there himself, his chair facing the open window. Alex had requested that should the child be a boy then they were to name him Denys after their own father. Thinking of it now, Jonathan found it perverse that Alex would wish the memory of their violent, gin soaked patriarch onto a tender child - and his first born, no less.He found it infuriating, offensive, awful. He must try to reason with Mary to choose another name. _What a travesty, what a shame for the poor bastard child to come into such a family._

After all, Sir Denys Randall had been a man not possessed of a single ounce of tenderness or a shred of anything more than mild interest in any one of his sons other than Edward who, of course, only mattered because he would assure the family line in the county. All Sir Randall had really cared for were drinking and whoring and, in later years fighting bitterly with their darling mother, Jessica. His mother had been, Jonathan thought, too kind too and Alex had taken after her in that regard. It was they who had mattered to Jonathan most in the world and now both lay dead, eaten up by the indifference of nature, gorged upon by terrible insects while evil roamed the earth. _What justice had there been in that?_ Jonathan did not know and searched desperately to find in himself some memory of a warm smile or happy event that he and his own father had shared, that could serve as a template for his own duty. He could remember very little.

Behind him, Mary was packing away Alex's things, the detritus of the time they had spent in the boarding house. After the battle was over, Jonathan had promised to take Mary to his garrison quarters and then, once the weather had cleared, escort her safely back to England and the family seat. They had spoken little, despite their bond, but Mary smiled kindly at him as she stood to prepare for dinner. For a moment Jonathan was un-nerved; he had known few people to be kind for kindness' sake but he suspected that Mary was one of those people. Indeed, must have been if Alex had fallen in love with her. _Women were softer,_ Jonathan thought, _therefore more able to understand the needs of a child than men who seemed only appropriate to lend in their creation._ He watched the girl -his wife, Goddamn - stand and stretch and rub her swollen belly as though to comfort the child within it, for she was just a girl, not yet 21, as his own mother had been when she had married his father. Light devoured by the dark in a cycle that seemed relentless.  _God forbid the girl wish for a second child._

Across the street, a gaggle of brightly painted women spilled out of the bawdy-house, prepared and perfumed for their night’s work. For a moment, Jonathan watched them, at first with mild curiosity as though they were strange beetles bursting from under a rock and then, with something like lust. There was one, shorter than the others, her stays laced tight, her skin unblemished by poverty and disease, her long hair pulled up to reveal the palest shoulders Jonathan had seen on a woman not from his own class. He kept watching them, baffled, until carried on the rising wind, he heard it; “…be better than the poorhouse, sweetheart, you just see. We’ll take care o’you… ” 

Smirking to himself, Jonathan sat again, doubting very much that the young girl would last the month. He knew full well what military men with a belly full of booze and a purse full of coins would expect to pay for. He had done so countless times himself. That self-loathing rose again, for a second, quickly batted away into the depths of Jonathan’s thoughts like a small minnow glinting, disappearing into the depths. In its place loomed a larger memory that Jonathan had failed to forget. 

He had been fifteen by then and the stable boy who had taken him so roughly had been long gone, married to a girl in the village that winter. Jonathan still remembered how as a boy his hand would graze his member in the dark and the thoughts of Emma Darnley would quickly and shamefully be clouded with the memory of his face against the scratching hay, pushed, arse up into the stalls by the bigger man. He shuddered at how, even now, that thought of roughness made him finish so fast, shame and need knotting together. But, he thought too of just how confused he had become when, at 14, he had seen her. 

Though there were few memorable women in Jonathan’s life, he had been rapt in the company of one. Arabella George had been both sacred and profane, Jonathan remembered, a woman unlike others. Her skin had been as pale as a queen, her hair like a bright penny, always coiled around her head like writhing copper snakes. Refusing the shame of the workhouse, Arabella - or Bella - as the men had called her - had quickly used her charm and what coin she had left to sell herself as the finest, cleanest, most gentlewomanly of whores in the whole of the south of England. Sir Denys Randall had met her at a party hosted by Sir William Carfax and had taken a liking to the idea that knocking down such a brazen woman, a woman who dared to use her noble connections against the good men of England would be the greatest sport. Arabella’s father had been that mine owner, Gilbert George, their family bankrupted. Their only daughter ripe for the picking now that her mother was a drunk and her father had thrown himself from Beachy Head. 

Denys Randall and his coterie had been half way through a second bottle of brandy, having finished their grouse, when Jonathan had walked in and seen her. In the dining room of his father’s hunting lodge, the men burst into fits of crapulous laughter. His mouth hung open, his fifteen year old body now pulsing, beating, sweating at such a sight. 

“Well, here’s the boy! So struck by you Bella, you can see his breakfast!” roared Denys. 

“And his stalk!” grunted Sir Charles Latham, gesturing wildly at the boy with his glass. 

Jonathan had thought himself incapable of blushing so hard and quickly righted himself, determined to show these old drunks that he, too, could be like them. “Careful, M’lord,” Jonathan sighed walking languidly toward the heaving table, “keep up with that brandy and you’ll be unable to get one yourself.” 

The table crowed with laughter, the men pulling out a chair for him, ushering him into their company.

“You’ve a sharp tongued lad there, Denys, I’ll give you that.” Charles said. 

“Get the boy a glass!” The order was barked at a servant - male, of course - who stood in the corner by Jonathan’s own Godfather, Sir Vincent Milbury. 

These hunting trips the men took were seen as far too raucous for any of the female servants and so, only male ones were summoned. Not least because they could be kept quiet; the ladies were prone to talk to Lady Randall and, given the evening’s entertainments, Denys couldn’t possibly risk that. The very fact that Jessica had let Jonathan away had been a point of great contention that Jonathan had never forgotten. He wondered what would have happened to him had his mother refused to let him go that weekend, if he had been forced to stay at home with she and Alex. If he had never met brilliant, terrible Bella George. 

That night the men had plied him with brandy and he had gone with them to the drawing room, not too drunk, he remembered, and all the while being praised for his tolerance of the alcohol by the blustering old farts. All of them unaware of the rough cider that Edward would give to him when the servants weren’t looking. 

“How old is he, Denys?” Bella had asked,arranging herself on a chaise, a vision in chartreuse silk, “such a fine face, straight backed and strong…”

“Coming on sixteen this Michelmas, aren’t you boy?” Denys had slapped his son on the shoulder and, Jonathan had nodded, awkward. 

“Well then, I’ve a wager that you have every girl in the county ablaze, don’t you?” Bella purred.

Jonathan blushed again which sent the entire room into fits of laughter, Sir Milbury even slapped his knee. How shameful it had been, he thought, what a blundering fool child I was. “No, Madam, I do not believe I have.”

“You are the most innocent among us then, Master Randall.” 

“A fact I’ll soon hope to change, Bella, that’s for sure. Now, lad, I’ve not brought you here to sup our best brandy like a baby with a toothache. I think it’s time you show your mettle, what do you say, fellows?” 

The other men of the company laughed, nudging one another like schoolboys. A hand landed on his shoulder, that of Charles Latham.

“Better you start now with a woman so fair as Bella than those poxy whores that the lads in the Army find, isn’t that right!” 

“Those bints give you the clap something rotten!” Milbury called, “Stayed in London a month longer than I had to because of the damned thing. Told the wife I was mired in work.” 

“Right up to your bollocks, you old bastard.” Edward laughed, “Go on, Johnny! Time to ride something more fun than horses!” 

"Gentlemen, please," laughed Bella, "give the boy time. I'm sure even you were all blushing virgin once!"

"Oh, you'll have your fun alright, lad, won't you?" Milbury said.

Either side of him, his father and Latham egged him on, joshing and joking with slaps on the shoulder, shepherding him towards the bedroom off the small hallway. All the while he had been full of panic, he knew well the anatomy of a man, knew what men wanted from each other, and of his own rough experience, the violent imaginings that bubbled up in the dark. Yet, Bella, a woman, he knew nothing of. _What did women know or need of sex?_ he had thought. _Surely such sweet creatures were not possessed of the vulgar appetites of men?_

“Well, Sir, I-uh” panic had run through Jonathan then like cold water, drowning him in fear and shame. He had been so desperate to impress the men, his father and, most of all, Edward, that his words had choked him.

“Ah, Look at him!” Denys sneered, “Soft-headed as a woman.”

“Bella!” Sir Milbury barked, “show the lad the learning he’ll need, won’t you?"

"I doubt you’ll be disappointed yer’self!” His father cackled with laughter and to Jonathan’s horror reached down and grabbed him between the thighs. 

The men burst into fits of laughter again, pulling his cheeks, slapping Jonathan roughly on the shoulders. He could hardly make to leave now. He certainly couldn't refuse or run away for they'd think him a coward or worse, a queer, and Jonathan daren't think of them knowing it was half-true. He had no choice but to prove himself with this woman, terrified he'd panic and spoil himself before she'd so much as unlaced her dress. Struggling Jonathan pulled away, righted himself.

Sir Denys pushed his son towards the bedroom, “I’ve seen this boy in the bath-house only last week! Any woman'd be happy to chance upon such a prick!”

“Not that he has any idea what to do with it.” Edward sighed, eyeing his brother, challenging him, “Do you Johnny?” 

Humiliation burned through Jonathan then; _by Christ, he’d show him, that arrogant, smug bastard, Edward. Fuck him._

“Come, boy,” Bella smiled, held her hand out to him like a friendly governess leading him to class, “we’ll make a man of you, yet.”

Jonathan curled his arm through hers, wondered if she thought of the shameful violence he did, if she longed to possess another’s soul like he did. If emotion would come to her like it came to him, in such waves as to be overwhelming in their love and hate. As a boy he had doubted it, that moment and every one before it, Jonathan Randall had been certain that the emotions of women were not as complex as those of men. The company had cheered and the door had closed behind him.

Now, as a man twenty-five years older Jonathan still could not be certain of the hearts of women. He had remembered how his mother had wept for him as his father had beat him, he had seen over many weeks how Mary had lovingly nursed Alex. The girl had cared for his every need, sat for hours at his brother’s bedside. He remembered the tears of Claire Fraser at Wentworth. _What it must be to love as a woman loves? The mind softened by sentimentality._ He shifted in the chair; the cold was bitter today and if he sat too long in one position, Jonathan found himself in pain that clawed him to his bones. He noticed that the bawdy-house had its candles lit, the red pane of glass above the door flickering brightly.  


He thought then of the closed door, of Bella scooping up the decanter of brandy on the mantlepiece in the bedroom and of all the other women who had come after. Fewer than the men but captivating in a way that the men weren’t. 

“Don’t be shy, sweetness,” Bella purred, “let’s take a look at that body I’ve been hearing so much about.”

“You really find this entertaining?” Jonathan had said, his eyes fixed on her, incredulous.

“And why wouldn’t I?” she shook her head, freeing some of the unruly strands from their ribbon. 

Jonathan watched the hair fall over her white shoulder, had wondered what it would be to kiss it, to put his hand around her neck and watch her gasp for breath as he fucked her. Inevitably he had found out; Bella was compliant but she was also far stronger than he had been expecting.

“How could I not find such a fine, young, brat as you entertaining when my usual diet is the overweight, tired old men who drink themselves stupid?” she had answered,pushing him onto the bed. Her hand made its way quickly into his breeches, between his thighs, “The kind of men who destroyed my family. Why wouldn’t I take absolute delight in corrupting their children as I was corrupted?” her breath came hard and fast, like hail against Jonathan’s ear, full of reproach.

At fifteen, Jonathan had never heard a woman speak like that, not with such brazen accusations or with such fire. It stunned him almost as much as the hardening between his thighs as she said it, his member aching like it had done so at home, when he had thought again and again of the brutality of the stable boy. “You are wicked, Madam, I am sure of it. You’re no lady at all, whore!”

He made to sit up but Arabella pushed him down again with such roughness that it evoked in him frustrated, affronted rage.  _How dare a woman - and a whore at that - speak to him so!_

“I do what I must with what I have, Sir. In that there is no wickedness, merely necessity. This desire is mine, my body is mine and I shall own it, not you or your kind.” 

“Rich words from a woman whose cunt’s been had by every man in this place,” he spat, he heart pounding and, lower, his member hardening still.

Bella had struck him across the face, her ring catching his cheek. “And I’ll be well-paid and well-free for the trouble,” she said. 

Jonathan’s  blood thrummed at his temples, “Do it again,” he said, his face tingling, the darkness gone for the blissful moment pain had replaced it. The moment had been revelatory. As though there had been revealed to him a secret door through which he could escape, through which lay his salvation from the tempest of rage and revulsion in his mind. And all of this at the hand of a woman, too. 

“Ask nicely,” Bella laughed, “please,” “Please Madam,” Jonathan breathed, his young body aching with humiliation and desire. She  _was_ enjoying this, he realised, laughing at him, enjoying his pain and frustration. He imagined the mockery he would face if the men on the other side of the door knew he had been felled so easily by a woman and winced, felt himself come closer to release with the shame of it all. _Damn his useless fucking body! Why was he wrought so?_

It had taken only a few more strokes of her delicate hands for him to spill himself over her, his face pressed into the pillow. He lay with his chest heaving for a few moments, his mind blank from release. But as fast as he had been undone, Jonathan was overwhelmed by thundering rage, utter fury that tore through him like a butcher's knife. 

"And I didn't even have to take my dress off," towering above him, Bella George smirked as she wiped her hands at the small wash basin in the corner of the room. 

"Whore," breathed Jonathan, his voice hoarse, "you fucking temptress, you cheated me out of what I was due!"

"Don't be absurd, boy," Bella sighed, sitting herself on the edge of the bed, "no need to be embarrassed about your little... _accident_. We've all night and I shan't tell the others." 

Jonathan was all fury and he lashed out, struck Bella across the face in a grotesque mirror of his own request just a few moments before. 

"Brat!" Bella grabbed his wrist and pushed him down again, "do not think that I will be treated by you as your father treats me. Do not think, Master Randall, that I am prepared to be spoken down to by a child barely off the breast and unable to control his impulses. Do not think I have not seen worse or that I am frightened by your obstreperous fooling for a moment, do you understand, Sir?"

Jonathan could barely breathe. Bella's mouth was hardly an inch from his own and he longed then to kiss her, to prove to her that he was nothing like his father, that he was better and stronger and-

Outside, he heard the assembled men laugh and joke. Bella watched him watch the door and smirked. "Silly boy. All bluster and fury and impotence. Desparate to please your father even though he's a fool."

"Damn you, whore," He had kissed her then, despite being told not to, pushed her into the bed. 

"Oh," Bella had grinned up at him, stroked his face with tenderness that made him shiver to remember, "our boy likes it rough, does he?"

His body had been tingling again with the vigour only young men have the opportunity to throw away and he had left behind bruises that did not fade from Bella George's throat for three weeks.  

  


It seemed ironic now, given the injuries that Jamie had inflicted on him, Jonathan thought. If only there were some way of telling his younger self to take what the hell he wanted and be damned with the consequences. It was a lesson he had not learned soon enough in life. He shut the window for the sake of his bones and stretched. Jonathan began to stoke the fire. It was the kitchen-maid’s job usually but he feared that if he did not occupy his hands at something he would take his fists to the furniture or worse, be pushed into the bawdy-house by his rage, his frustrations expunged on whatever whore crossed his path first. He could not possibly allow such an indignity to occur now that he was possessed of a wife and, to all intents and purposes, a child.  


The flames began to flicker and soon enough, Jonathan had built up a roaring fire. He jabbed at it violently with the poker, wished he could have taken the same implement to his father’s throat for the way Sir Denys had picked over every move, every inch of his personhood until Jonathan scarcely felt he owned anything. Even his most intimate thoughts and memories were polluted by his father’s sneering face. What father could he make anyone when he had faced such damnably perverse circumstances? When he was so broken himself? When only evil remained, what hope did goodness have? When he had seen those same men who had touched so tenderly the cheeks of their sweethearts slaughter and rape with those same hands? Setting aside the poker, Jonathan walked to the table on the opposite side of the room, his fists clenching and unfurling like those of a drowning man. Mary would be in soon to summon him to dinner. Their first as husband and wife, the last supper before Culloden. Somewhere in their web of rooms Mary cried out, weeping as though for the shame of her family, as though the very debt of grief grew within her fragile, bird-like chest. Pushing his hair off his face, Jonathan sighed. _Damn it all, he thought, damn every poor bastard cursed with the name of Randall. We are all mis-shapen, not right somehow. We are all broken, tragic things._  


Striding down the hallway, he pushed into the room where Mary had been preparing a small table.

"Quick," she gasped, bent double, her face twisted with pain, "get Claire. You must. The child is coming."


End file.
